About

About Andrew Stokols

Andrew Stokols is an urban planner/designer and researcher. He recently graduated with a masters in urban planning at Harvard Graduate School of Design. His thesis explored the potential of urban network analysis to improve walkability and community in China's super block neighborhoods. Andrew has also been involved in research projects investigating various facets of global urbanization, particularly in China and Asia. As part of Neil Brenner's urban theory lab at Harvard GSD, Andrew investigated the confluence of the global logistics industry and China's "One Belt One Road" program in furthering urbanization in central Asia and western China.

Andrew has worked across Asia and the U.S. on a wide range of projects involving sustainable development and cities. After graduating college, he worked for a nonprofit in Beijing managing heritage preservation and rural development projects, and taught GIS to community organizations and students as a 2011 Davis Peace Prize Fellow in Sri Lanka.

As a 2012 Fulbright Fellow in China, Andrew spent a year in Xi'an studying the effects of forced relocation on rural livelihoods in western China. He documented the challenges of farmers who have been moved as part of massive relocation projects, to specially-built "urban" dwellings in new towns across China as part of the government's efforts to boost consumption and end rural poverty. He also examined the efforts of Chinese cities to develop "creative" industry zones based around innovative industries and arts through an in-depth study of artists and residents in Xi'an's "textile city" 纺织城 district. After this, he worked at the World Resources Institute Ross Center for Sustainable Cities in Washington D.C., analyzing data on the impacts of WRI projects in various cities around the world and assisting the Director of the Ross Center for Sustainable Cities present this work to various conferences and audiences.

He has also consulted for the Global Heritage Fund to develop sustainable tourism guidelines in the UNESCO city of Pingyao, China and spent a year in as an editor and reporter with the Korea Joong-Ang Daily/International New York Times in Seoul, South Korea, where he wrote on China-Korea relations, and Seoul's new eco-city, among other topics.

Andrew graduated from UC Berkeley with degrees in history and urban planning, and a minor in global poverty and practice.

His work has been featured in The Atlantic, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, ChinaFile, and ChinaDialogue.